HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT

HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT is aimed at

HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT set up in association 1991…

TRANSLATION EDITED BY

 

HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT

in order to overcome handicap and promote cultural exchange and fair and solidal development between North and South in the world.

 HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT Association at Peace Centre InfoH5 - 5th District Via Stradella 192 - 10147 TURIN - Italy -

Phone number: 011 / 44.355.57

FAX: 011 / 4435575

Tax number 94021510014 - POSTAL CURRENT ACCOUNT 71619753

In Italy and, more generally, in many countries of the North of Planet a wide and effective action for disabled people to be inserted in and to be integrated has difficulty to be realized.

As existing outstanding resources in terms of investments, technologies and scientific research and being significant and numerous the single positive experiences about, plus the acknowledgment of some basic rights at formal level, cultural, economic and social "barriers" are to point out really preventing the carrying out of full and concrete right of equality, taking part and citizenship for those who don't correspond to the standards of "normality", "functionality" and "efficiency" imposed by groups and dominating cultures.

The same effects, often negatively "enlarged" owing to a variety of reasons among which is basic the impoverishment of resources, take place in the countries in the South of world.

Also here, in some realities, where it's being tried to get out of war and oppression situations, exist and/or are being formed groups, associations and initiatives that, even though acting under conditions of utmost economic precariousness and "instruments", are authors of own quite original and advanced cultural intervention models, both for overcoming handicap, the disabled people to be integrated into, and for a more general development of local societies.

The social alienation, the poverty are no natural or fortuitous phenomena not to be eliminated but the result of unjust and discriminating relationship.

Those economic-political mechanisms that impose the organic social alienation of "poor Countries" in the South of world from the international background, are the same that put aside the weak groups and subjects inside the rich "Countries" in the North of world.

As for mechanisms and power groups, inside the societies being said "developing", these exclusions are considered in a particularly violent and dramatic way, by "producing" the excluded persons among the excluded ones, the "poor" of "poor", whereas the most part of disabled people are surely to point out.

It's worrying the generalizing of a trend efficiency -production oriented logics to be favoured, making of the market the only standard of judgement, priority, regulation and development, by risking supporting a conception through which the needs of autonomy, care and social integration of differently handicapped people, included their rights, would be a "luxury" permitted to societies being economically strong and in expansion only and not rather the standard criterion how any society is really democratic, participated in, civil and humanly to be lived.

Starting from this reality, taking into account that the same initiatives of Non Government Organizations and of international solidarity, when operating in the national health insurance sector too, only seldom act on the handicap problems throughout this point of view, the "Handicap and Development" association has been formed in TURIN in order to draw everybody's attention on said problem promoting consequent, even if modest, concrete initiatives.

More specifically "Handicap and Development" is understood to do as follows:

a) Collect funds to finance programs run by groups and associations of the countries in the South of world, especially if made up the same disabled people, by putting information, experiences and professionalism at disposal.

b) Promote occasions of meetings, knowledge trips, mutual visits of delegations, cultural exchanges and collaborations, confrontations, reflections and researches among basic groups, associations, italian professional operators and corresponding realities of the countries in the South of world on the different models of intervention for the global integration of disabled people, as well as on the contextual study of suitable technologies for the autonomy in the different cultural and geographic environments.

c) Collects, organize, produce, elaborate and spread information and documentation on the realities and all problems related to the physical, psychic and sensory handicapping, particularly in the South of world.

d) Promote the reasonable and united commerce of products coming from craftsmen and cooperatives in the South of world, as well as of further forms of mutual solidarity/social justice, by cooperating with further associations and realities in the branch by spreading their initiatives.

e) Always and any way operate in respect with and supporting the choices of freedom, self-determination and self-development of persons and people, as well as for the integration at any level of disabled people into a worldwide society, respecting and enhancing the differences for a common global growth.

To make all possible,

we need your help too!

You can collaborate with "Handicap and Development":

- BY TAKING PART OF THE ASSOCIATION AND/OR OF THE WORKING GROUP ON HANDICAPPING AND INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL EXCHANGE, BY PUTTING SHARE OF YOUR TIME AND CAPABILITIES AT DISPOSAL IN ORDER TO WORK TOGETHER ON THESE ITEMS.

- BY PAYING A CONTRIBUTION IN ORDER TO SUPPORT ALL SOLIDARITY INITIATIVES UNDERTAKEN (on the POSTAL CURRENT ACCOUNT n.33756107 entered in favour of: Giugiaro Emilio - Turin -, underlining "Handicap and Development Initiatives").

- BY "CREATING" "SENSITIZATION", CULTURE, INTERVENTIONS ON THE INTEGRATION OF DISABLED PEOPLE PLUS REASONABLE AND UNITED CULTURAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN SOUTH AND NORTH IN THE WORLD.

The Handicap and Development Association operationally refers to the Peace Documentation Centre and to the "Informahandicap" of 5th Administrative District in Turin, C.so Cincinnato, 115 (Phone Number 011/44.385.20-23-24), participating there in the working group on HANDICAPPING AND INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL EXCHANGE, open to all groups and citizens to be interested in, on Thursday 3th of every month (except for non-working days), at 5.30 p.m.

We are waiting for you!

Contact us!

 

HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT is aimed at:

 

a)    Promoting the preventing of handicaps and the integration of people having disability in any sociocultural and environmental context-background, starting from the italian, Piedmont region and Turin area reality, by qualifying its own action on the defence and promotion of the rights of disabled people and, more generally, of the most disadvantaged and emarginated part of population, also through informative-cultural activities of research and social solidarity.

b)    Developing even in cooperation with other subjects, some ideas, proposals and projects for promoting the autonomy at all levels and the independent life of people having disability, by stimulating the activation of suitable territorial services, of an effective domiciliary and personal assistance, as well as of housing community, of first-ranged acceptance, family houses, housing groups and whatever else being useful, permitting the active stay in its own household group and/or in its own territory, also under situations of reduced or impossible personal autonomy at physical, psychical and sensory level.

c)    Promoting the getting over of architectural and cultural features that deny access to the handicapped, denying of fact the equality among all citizens and their own equal opportunities in taking part guaranteed by the Italian Constitution and the Universal Statement of Men Human Rights.

d)    Promoting and safeguarding, even in cooperation with other subjects, the right to moving of disabled people, stimulating the Local Bodies and the competent Institutions so that the traditional means of public transportation are really within the reach of everybody and also of disabled people, as well as the institution, the experimentation, the spreading and correct management of substitutive and/or supplementary services to ensure any way a real moving of disabled people (such as for instance taxi-service, equipped minibuses, integrated multitransportation forms and so on) that have as a goal the making possible for disabled people the easy moving, having at disposal a variety of alternatives.

e)    Getting together, organizing, producing, managing and spreading documentation on the realities and problems about the physical, psychical and sensory disability in the countries on the way of Development and, more generally, on the underdevelopment and integration of disadvantaged people through the initiatives thought to be suitable for.

f)     Promoting occasions of meeting, studying, confrontation, thinking and research among base groups, italian operators and also corresponding realities in the countries on the way of Development on the different models of social intervention-integration of disabled people, as well as on the contextual study of suitable technologies and computer science at the service of person and for the autonomy in different cultural and geographical environments. In fact the so called technological revolution with the relating development of new technologies particularly in the branch of computer science, communication, robotics, environmental check and telematics, if suitably implemented and aimed at, makes up an incomparable occasion for supporting rehabilitation, social and working insertion in people having physical, psychical and sensory disability

g)    Organizing trips aimed at getting to know people, mutual visits of delegations and whatever else might be useful for favouring cultural exchanges among realities operating on disability in the Northern and Southern Countries in the world.

h)    Supporting intervention programs on disability and handicap promoted or managed by realities locally organized in the Countries on the way of Development, by putting information, expertise and professionalism at disposal.

i)     Working and carrying out Cooperation projects in such a branch, by collaborating with Public Bodies, Non Governmental Organizations, associations and italian, foreign and international supporting groups, in close interconnection with local counterparts.

j)     Creating teams aimed at defining and managing single intervention projects in specific political-geographical areas.

k)    Promoting moments of study and research aimed at better understanding real needs, through the evolution and monitoring of actual services present in the Piedmont territory particularly, even through the consideration of experiences somewhere else realized and proposals made by other groups and associations.

l)     Promoting, even in cooperation with other subjects, the respect of italian regulations in force about the elimination of architectural features that deny access to the handicapped in public and in private and also the evolution of the same regulations in view of an environment being fully accessible, usable and safe to anyone, making aware, informing, producing culture and information on the right of having an environment being fully architectural featureless, promoting, even in cooperation with other subjects, public displays and whatever other action aimed at stimulating the intervention and engagement of bodies and competent administrations for the elimination of architectural features in any sphere of life, relaunching, even in cooperation with other subjects, the confrontation at different levels for the elimination of architectural features that deny access to the handicapped with municipal and regional administrations,  promoting, even in cooperation with other subjects, survey and denunciation activities on the presence of architectural features in the Piedmont territory,  relaunching, even in cooperation with other subjects, the right to the accessibility of tourist and hotel facilities particularly in the Piedmont region, searching, even in cooperation with other subjects, for the interconnection and operating coordination with regional committees for the elimination of architectural features that deny access to the handicapped present in other regions by promoting informative exchanges, common actions and whatever else provided being not in contrast with the purposes pointed out in the present act

m)   Starting, even in cooperation with other subjects, particularly at Turin and Piedmont local level, the confrontation also through periodic meetings with assessorships and competent administrations for the progressive setting up of an integrated public transportation system being totally accessible, promoting, even in cooperation with other subjects, initiatives particularly at regional level – Piedmont – aimed at permitting the full and easy moving of every citizen regardless of the specific physical, sensory and mental condition.

n)    Promoting the spreading of culture, insertion and social integration of disabled people, for the refusal of any form of social, cultural discrimination and racism by always operating, any way, in full respect and support of choices of freedom, self-determination and self-development of people for the integration of disabled persons.

o)    Promoting the expertise and spreading of resources exchange forms safeguarding the southern producers in the world, in an international background favouring more and more the profit of rich countries to disadvantage of the development of poor countries, even through the promotion of trade forms being fair and jointly liable, plus fair saving.

p)    Handling for the preventing of any form of disability and handicap even through the engagement for the ban of any form of production, marketing and installation of anti-personnel mines, for the clearing of territories infested by mines and for the victims rehabilitation.

q)    Promoting, even in cooperation with other subjects, the forming of data banks, telecommunication type too, and whatever else being useful to the spreading of themes shown in the present act.

r)     Promoting and joining associations, committees and further collective subjects operating with purposes pointed out in the present statute or any way not in contrast with goals shown in the present act.

s)    Collecting funds and benevolent donations to achieve statutory purposes and implement connected activities referable to them

 

 

HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT set up in association 1991, in Turin, and is formed by persons, disabled and not, interested in operating in the branch of handicap and development in a non welfarism point of view but based on involment and desire to be the centre of attention as of subjects, groups, bodies and so on, that in the Northern and Southern part in the world fight for a real right of citizenship of the most disadvantaged persons and for a re-balancing among poor and rich countries in view of a global, multiethnic, fair and jointly liable society.

Even professional men ( physiotherapists, architects, cultural operators and so on ) join it ready to share their know-hows and professionalisms in order to create, together with the same emarginated subjects, a network of information, cooperations and projects aimed at improving, starting from the bottom, the quality of life for all, in the Southern as well as in the Northern part in the world.

This engagement arises out of a set of considerations to be summarized as follows: in Italy and, more generally, in many countries in the Northern part of Planet a wide and effective action of insertion and integration of disabled people finds it hard to be implemented, as well as are numerous the individuals and groups excluded by the sharing of welfare, know-hows and power.

As there are in fact considerable resources in terms of investments, technologies and scientific research and as are significant and numerous the single positive experiences and the acknowledgement of some basic rights at formal level, remain cultural, economic and social barriers that surely prevent the realization of full and concrete right of equality, taking part and citizenship to all those who don’t correspond to the rules of “normality”, “functionality” and “efficiency” imposed by groups and dominating cultures.

Worse conditions, often negatively enhanced owing to a variety of reasons among which, basic is, the depauperation of resources, take place in the countries in the Southern part of world. Even if, here too, in some realities, especially there where it is being trying to get out of war and oppression situations, there are and/or are being forming groups, associations and initiatives that, as handling under conditions of utmost economic precariousness and “tooling”, are makers of their own cultural models and pretty original and advanced interventions, both for the getting over of handicap and the integration of disabled people and for a more general development of local societies, useful and “exportable” even in backgrounds being so called more advanced.

This comes from the fact that the alienation, the poverty are no natural or casual phenomena, being inevitable or not to be eliminated but rather the “product” of unfair and discriminating relationships. The economic-political mechanisms and power groups that oblige on the fringes the subjects and “weak” groups inside the “rich countries”, in the Northern part of world, are the same imposing the organic alienation of the “poor countries” in the Southern part of Planet from the international background and their systematic exploitation.

Such mechanisms and groups, inside the societies so named “on the way of Development”, consider these phenomena in a particularly violent and dramatic manner, giving rise to intolerable poverty and degradation situations, the excluded persons among the excluded ones, the “poor people” of “poor people” among whom the most of disabled people are surely to be counted. It’s worrying the spreading everywhere of a tendency to favour efficiency-productive logics which make of the market, of a certain type of market, the only criterion of any priority, rule and development.

There is a risk to strengthen a conception according to which the needs of emancipation, autonomy, care and integration of people being variously disadvantaged or minority and the safeguard of their own rights should be a “luxury” permitted only to societies economically strong and under expansion, an accessory and residual goal, being always and anyway successive, and not rather the indicator of how, on the other hand, any society is or wants be really developed, civil, democratic, participated and humanly liveable.

Starting from this reality and considering that the same initiatives of the Non Governmental Organizations and international solidarity, on operating also in the sociomedical branch, they intervene only rarely with this point of view on the handicap problems, it is being formed the association HANDICAP AND DEVELOPMENT to draw the attention of all on the problem by promoting consequent, even if modest, concrete initiatives.

 

 

 

TRANSLATION EDITED BY

INGANNI PROF. DR. GIAN PIERO

VIA TIZIANO N. 3

10126 TORINO     ITALY

INTERPRETER-TRANSLATOR

LANGUAGES SPOKEN/WRITTEN ENGLISH – GERMAN – FRENCH